this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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Men's Liberation

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[–] ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is literally the centre of the incel problem.

[–] spaduf 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Would you be willing to expand a little bit for the purposes of discussion?

[–] ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 42 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Oh for sure!

I’ve known several incels, and in my experience, their entitlement to sex is really just an extension of wanting to feel loved.

Men grow up in a near drought of love and physical affection. After about 5 years old, we can’t hug our best friends.

Then men are told that they will pick a blushing bride that will be everything to them.

And when that doesn’t work, they become bitter and don’t know what to do with the rejection, because they have shit coping skills and mix up their entitlement for love with an entitlement for sex.

It’s a mess. I’m not absolving the incels of their shitty behaviour, but I’m also not going to say that “they deserve to feel unloved”

But I think the solution starts with recognizing that the incels actually want love. In my experience, women want to feel loved, and THEN trust you physically with sex. This makes sense because the physical danger for women is very real. Men seem to do it backwards. They want to get physical first and then trust you with love, since emotional danger is very real to them.

Anyways I’ll stop rambling, this is a mix of facts and personal experiences, but I really stand by the general point.

[–] dumples@kbin.social 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’ve known several incels, and in my experience, their entitlement to sex is really just an extension of wanting to feel loved.
Men grow up in a near drought of love and physical affection. After about 5 years old, we can’t hug our best friends.

I think you really have hit the nail on the head about how sex is the only source for a lot of important emotions and needs that is socially acceptable in a toxic gender roles based system. Sex is the only place that physical intimacy, honesty, giving / receiving pleasure, tenderness, feeling sexy etc. can be achieved. Most people cannot express that correctly and can't see they can get it elsewhere. This causes tons of issues for people both within and without relationships.

[–] ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

💯

The amount of pressure it puts on a partner to be your sole source of emotional confort is tremendous.

The other option for men is solitude.

There is a better way.

[–] dumples@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

For sure. Be the change you want to see to all your male friends. I hug all my friends and have started complimenting my male friend a lot more. It's infective

[–] spaduf 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I really think you nailed it here

[–] ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Thanks, I go through great pains to try and truly understand issues rather than “grab the pitchforks”

It’s all too easy to see someone as evil, rather than just a person hurting. Once you see the hurt, you have to be careful not to go all “bleeding heart” and excuse their crimes.

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

INCELS need to realise their problems stem from needing to be loved. It's not anyone else's job to understand them and fix their lives FOR them. But we can help them understand insofar as they're willing to learn.

The second thing they and all of us need to realise is that we can't get ALL our love from romantic partners. That puts a HUGE burden on the relationship. We need to learn how to share platonic love again. That's what's breaking us men. If we can't learn to love eachother without toxic masculinity telling us it's "gay" or whatever, then we're doomed to losing men to loneliness, despair, and inceldom.

[–] dumples@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago

Exactly right. The queer and feminist community made it acceptable to be whoever they want to be. Time for men to join the forces and do what makes them happy and to not what they think they have to. Remember that if someone else likes something different or hates something you love that doesn't diminish your enjoyment

[–] ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

^ mic drop moment.

This is the men’s revolution that’s needed. The feminist revolution came, and was absolutely necessary, and now we need one for men. We didn’t keep up with the times.

[–] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 2 points 10 months ago

Men seem to do it backwards. They want to get physical first and then trust you with love, since emotional danger is very real to them.

This always seemed strange to me. I need a emotional connection to a person first, to have sex with them. Given I can establish one rather fast.

[–] dumples@kbin.social 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think this makes some great point but doesn't talk enough about how the cultures makes sex exclusively about the conquest for men as well. There is almost no talk about intimacy or pleasure from the sex but rather if it was gotten at all. The overall goal is have sex. Its isn't pleasure focused for either party with the assumption is that the man ejaculates from PIV. The queer and kink communities have really focused on the entire aspects and emotions that sex can provide. This trickled into most sex positive books and most of the advice was geared to women to allow them to feel any sexual pleasure but is applicable for all genders.

I think most men understand that sex can provide multiple emotions at once but can't articulate what they need and how they get it outside of sex as well. We need to talk about how young men want love and that sex can be part of that. I highly recommend people look into kink and sex positive books to understand relationships and what sex can mean outside the traditional sexist narrative.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

what books and what is their usual advice?

[–] dumples@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For general sex and relationships I recommend Hot and Unbothered. Its from a sex therapist and it talks about how to find and ask about the sex that you actually want. Its got great advice for anyone about how to think about your relationship and even has some exercises and worksheet (like a Yes, No & Maybe checklist).

For Kink the top two books are The New Topping Book and The New Bottoming Book which gives overview for topping and bottoming. They both start with some examples of what goals or feeling you might want to achieve. Some of their examples are Empathy, Creativity, Bigness, Nurturing, Control, innocence, Lust, Power etc. It then gives some practical advice about how to start with experimenting and how to ask about getting what you want. Its a great way to see what is out there even if you aren't interested in kink.

The real reason you should check them out is for communication skills for on-going enthusiastic consent. If you see how someone asks to be hog tied with a ball gag in their mouth and whipped silly its easy to ask for anything else. Same with safety both emotional and physical. The most interesting part is how right after giving detailed instructions on how to whip someone is how choking is never safe. Its interesting to see what can be safe and what cannot be.

[–] fracture@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

holy shit these are great recs, tysm

[–] dumples@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

I'm happy to help. If you need more books all of the books above will have their own reference / recommendations. Good luck!!!